Les écrits militaires de Charles de Gaulle et le classicisme militaire prussien

Abstract

Charles de Gaulle's military writings and the classical Prussian military tradition ; The important place of Prussia and Germany in Charles de Gaulle’s military writings raises the cpiestion of how far the latter agreed or disagreed with German military principles and practices. After the Reich's foundation in 1871, German military thought steadily departed from the classical Prussian model, whose dominant figures had been Clausewitz and Moltke. This drift, within a Germany beset with gro¬ wing power pretensions, did not escape the notice of de Gaulle. Among the factors that contributed to Germany's defeat in 1918, he remarked on the taste for over-ambitious enterprises, excessive boldness, and the domination exerted by the military high command over the political authorities. Thus the Reich had partly broken with Prussian political and military principles and practices. To analyse Prussian writings is to discover a close convergence between them and de Gaulle’s own thought -true whether one scrutinizes the general principles of war, or action, the value of doctrine, or the qualities that make a good officer, or civil-military relations. To be sure, Captain de Gaulle had criticised what he called «the Moltke system » in the higher conduct of operations. But his critique bore chiefly upon the corrupted application of this system in the days leading up the Battle of the Marne in 1914. The refusal of dogmatism, the high regard for the spirit of initiative, and the continual adaptation of actions to circumstances were the enduring characteristics of Prussian practices that de Gaulle completely approved of. And when he characterised the ideal war leader, one can hardly avoid concluding that Moltke matches his description. Finally, de Gaulle’s own conduct confirms in large measure that he did embrace Prussian classical military tenets.